Brussels-London geometry seminar

Day-long geometry seminars with three talks on a common theme

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Brussels-London
geometry seminar

Day-long geometry seminars with three talks on a common theme

Next seminar Join mailing list

The seminar involves geometers from the Université libre de Bruxelles and the following London colleges:
University College, King's College, Queen Mary's College, and Imperial College.

Brussels-London XXII

Higgs bundles

University College London, 23rd March 2023

After a two year hiatus, the Brussels-London seminar returns!

The seminar will take place at University College London. The morning session and lunch will take place in 124 Gideon Schreier Lecture Theatre, Bentham House. The afternoon talks will take place in XLG1 Chemistry Lecture Theatre, Christopher Ingold Building. The afternoon tea/coffee break will be in room 502, Mathematics, 25 Gordon Street.

To attend this event, you should register in advance.

11am Laura Schaposnik


2pm Laura Fredrickson


3.30pm Nigel Hitchin


Laura Schaposnik. A map of Higgs Bundles, Generalized Hyperpolygons and More.

In this talk we will introduce Higgs bundles and generalized hyperpolygons, and look into different directions that have attracted attention within the area in the last decade. In particular, we shall see how Mirror Symmetry can be seen in terms of branes within the Hitchin fibration and show that, under certain assumptions on flag types for generalized hyperpolygons, the moduli space of generalized hyperpolygons admits the structure of a completely integrable Hamiltonian system. Time permitting, we will also see how I have been using my geometric background to answer questions in other areas of science. Much of the talk follows recent work joint with Steven Rayan.

Laura Fredrickson. Hyperkahler Metrics Near Semi-Flat Limits.

We make rigorous (a generalization of) the formalism of Gaiotto, Moore, and Neitzke for constructing hyperkahler manifolds near semi-flat limits. In particular, we account for the effects of complicated (e.g., densely wall crossing) BPS spectra and singular fibers. This provides a general framework for proving results about Gromov-Hausdorff collapse of hyperkahler manifolds to semi-flat limits and completes the Strominger-Yau-Zaslow conception of mirror symmetry for hyperkahler manifolds at the level of hyperkahler geometry (as opposed to only constructing one complex structure). We characterize the dependence of the periods of the three canonical Kahler forms on the natural parameters of the construction, and in particular prove that for non-compact manifolds this dependence is affine-linear. Specializing to the case of moduli spaces of weakly parabolic SU(2) Higgs bundles on a sphere with four punctures, we prove that this construction yields all such manifolds which are sufficiently close to the semi-flat limit. This talk is based on joint work with Arnav Tripathy and Max Zimet.

Nigel Hitchin. The odd integrable system.

The completely integrable system on the moduli space of Higgs bundles is based on evaluating on a Higgs field a basis for the invariant polynomials on the Lie algebra. If we take invariant alternating forms instead of symmetric ones then there is another story. On the one hand it can be interpreted in supermanifold terms as an integrable system for an odd symplectic structure but a more promising viewpoint is its relationship with the Hochschild cohomology of the moduli space of stable bundles.

Registration

Registration is free, but necessary in order that we know how many people to cater for. In order to register for the seminar please send an email, by the 9th March, to Lorenzo Foscolo. Lunch will be provided for all registered attendees.

Register

Previous Brussels-London seminars

Click on the seminar names to see the speakers, titles and abstracts. During the pandemic from mid 2020 until 2022, the BL seminar was replaced by the Brussels-Oxford-London-Warwick online seminar.

2019-2020

  • BL XXI: Algebraic geometry
  • BL XX: Symplectic geometry
  • BL XIX: Ricci flow
  • BL XVII: Willmore energy
  • BL XVII: Conformal geometry

2017-2018

  • BL XVI: Geometric analysis on metric spaces
  • BL XV: Teichmüller theory and hyperbolic geometry
  • BL XIV: Riemannian geometry
  • BL XIII: General relativity
  • BL XII: Asymptotic geometry of Riemannian manifolds
  • BL XI: Geometric flows
  • BL X: Low dimensional topology

2015-2016

  • BL IX: Gauge theory
  • BL VIII: Lower bounds on Ricci curvature
  • BL VII: Geometric group theory
  • BL VI: Part of the British Mathematical Colloquium
  • BL V: Einstein metrics

2013-2014

  • BL IV: Hyperkähler manifolds
  • BL III: Complex geometry
  • BL II: Symplectic and algebraic geometry
  • BL I: Geometric analysis

Scientific committee

The organisers of the Brussels-London geometry seminar are Joel Fine (ULB), Lorenzo Foscolo (University College London) and Huy The Nguyen (Queen Mary's University London).
In addition to the organisers, the scientific committee includes:

  • Mélanie Bertelson (Université libre de Bruxelles)
  • Andriy Haydys (Université libre de Bruxelles)
  • Jason Lotay (University of Oxford)
  • Reto Buzano (Università di Torino)
  • Dmitri Panov (King's College, London)
  • Bruno Premoselli (Université libre de Bruxelles)
  • Felix Schulze (University of Warwick)
  • Michael Singer (University College, London)
  • Guiseppe Tinaglia (King's College, London)

Funding

The seminar is supported by the London Mathematical Society, the FNRS and the Excellence of Science programme. Thanks to this support, there is funding to help graduate students and postdocs attend this seminar. If you are based in London, please contact Lorenzo Foscolo. If you are based in Brussels, please contact Joel Fine.

Mailing list

To keep up-to-date with the seminar schedule, add your name to our mailing list.

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Home page image credits

  1. Delacroix metro station, Brussels, photograph by Antonio Ponte. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
  2. "Westminster Rush", photograph by Megan Trace. CC BY-NC 2.0
  3. Great court of the British museum, photograph by Chris JL. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
  4. Detail of the Maison Saintenoy, Brussels, photograph by Geert Schneider. CC BY 2.0.

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